opencpn.1

.\"
.\" (C) Copyright 2018 Alec Leamas <leamas.alec@gmail.com>,
.\"
.TH Opencpn 1 "July 2018"

.SH NAME
opencpn \- Chartplotter and GPS Navigation Software
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B opencpn
.RI [ options ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
OpenCPN is a chartplotter and navigation GUI program supporting navigation
under way as well as planning. It supports a wide range of chart formats
using a plugin system. Other plugins provides support for e. g. radar, AIS
and weather maps. Program is localized in 20+ languages and ported to
several OS including MacOS, Windows and Linux.

.SH OPTIONS FOR STARTING OPENCPN
.TP
.B \-h, \-\-help
Show help info.
.TP
.B \-p, \-\-portable
Run in portable mode.
.TP
.B  \-l, \-\-loglevel=<level>
Set amount of logged information. Level is any of \fItrace\fR,
\fIdebug\fR, \fIinfo\fR, \fImessage\fR, \fIwarning\fR or \fIerror\fR,
defaulting to \fIinfo\fR if not set in environment; see ENVIRONMENT.

.TP
.B  \-c, \-\-configdir=<directory>
Use alternative configuration directory instead  of \fI~/.openpcn\fR on
Linux or MacOS.
.B  \-f, \-\-fullscreen
Switch to full screen mode on start.
.TP
.B  \-G, \-\-no_opengl
Disable OpenGL video acceleration. This setting will be remembered.
.TP
.B \-g,  \-\-rebuild_gl_raster_cache
Rebuild OpenGL raster cache on start.
.TP
.B \-D, \-\-rebuild_chart_db
Rescan chart directories and rebuild the chart database
.TP
.B  \-P, \-\-parse_all_enc
Convert all S-57 charts to OpenCPN's internal format on start.
.TP
.B  \-u, \-\-unit_test_1:<num>
Display a slideshow of <num> charts and then exit. Zero or negative <num>
specifies no limit.

.TP
.B \-s, \-\-safe_mode
Run without plugins, openGL and other possibly problematic features.
It is still possible to unintall plugins in this mode.

.SH OPTIONS FOR MANIPULATING RUNNING OPENCPN

.TP
.B \-r, \-\-remote
Run commands on a running instance instead of starting opencpn. Exits with
error code if no running opencpn instance is found.

.TP
.B \-R, \-\-raise
Raise opencpn window to be on top of other windows, requires \-\-remote.
This is the default behaviour if opencpn is invoked without options and
arguments and there already is a running instance.

.TP
.B \-e, \-\-get_rest_endpoint
Print the url for connecting to the local opencpn REST server e. g.
http://localhost:8000. Requires \-\-remote.

.TP
.B \-q, \-\-quit
Make the remote instance exit. Requires \-\-remote.

.SH PLUGIN LOADING

Plugin loading depends on that the opencpn main program can locate the
plugin object file and that the plugin can locate it's own data.
.P
On Linux,  the main program searches for plugin .so-files  in two locatiosn.
The first is \fI~/.local/lib/opencpn\fR.

The second is \fI@install-dir@/../lib/opencpn\fR where \fI@install-dir@\fR
is the location where opencpn is installed.
If for example opencpn is installed in \fI/usr/bin\fR plugins will be loaded
from \fI/usr/lib/opencpn\fR.
.P
On other platforms plugins are also loaded from two different locations,
one of which used primarely for system plugins and requiring administrative
privileges.
The other is a user-writable locations used by the plugin manager.
.P
A plugin's data directory is a path ending with
\fIopencpn/plugins/<plugin_name>\fR.
On Linux, this is by default searched in
~/.local/share:/usr/local/share:/usr/share.
This search path is overridden by XDG_DATA_DIRS as defined by the freedesktop
spec.
Only plugins adapted for this (i. e., using GetPluginDataDir()) handles this
properly.
.P
On other platforms plugin data directories are located in similar locations
which also must be retrieved in runtime using GetPluginDataDir().

.SH LIBRARY LOADING AND LD_LIBRARY_PATH

If \fILD_LIBRARY_PATH\fR exists in the environment \fBopencpn\fR uses it
without modifications.
.P
Otherwise \fILD_LIBRARY_PATH\fR is set to the same path as from which plugins are
loaded, see above. This ensures that helper binaries can load possible libraries
installed in the same directories as the plugin.

.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B OPENCPN_PLUGIN_DIRS
Plugin load path, see PLUGIN LOADING. If existing, overrides all default entries.
The path is ';'-separated on Windows but uses ':' on other platforms.
.TP
.B OPENCPN_LOGLEVEL
Default loglevel if not defined on command line using -l/--loglevel. See
the --loglevel option for allowed values.
.TP
.B OPENCPN_FATAL_ERROR
If defined, displays the message and exits on startup.

.SH FILES
.TP
.B ~/.opencpn/opencpn.log
System log file, a useful tool to solve problems.


.SH SEE ALSO
.br
https://www.opencpn.org
.br
https://www.freedesktop.org
.br
https://opencpn-manuals.github.io/main